[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 170 (Wednesday, November 18, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8075-S8076]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRANSPORTATION, HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES
APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2016--Continued
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). The majority leader.
Cloture Motion
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk for
the Collins substitute amendment No. 2812.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on Senate amendment
No. 2812, the substitute amendment to H.R. 2577, an act
making appropriations for the Departments of Transportation,
and Housing and Urban Development, and related agencies for
the fiscal year ending September 30, 2016, and for other
purposes.
Mitch McConnell, Susan M. Collins, Jerry Moran, John
Boozman, Steve Daines, John Hoeven, Cory Gardner, Dan
Sullivan, Joni Ernst, Daniel Coats, Johnny Isakson,
Orrin G. Hatch, Lamar Alexander, Mike Crapo, Richard
Burr, Shelley Moore Capito, Michael B. Enzi.
Cloture Motion
Mr. McCONNELL. I send a cloture motion to the desk for the underlying
bill, H.R. 2577.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The cloture motion having been presented under
rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on Calendar No.
138, H.R. 2577, an act making appropriations for the
Departments of Transportation, and Housing and Urban
Development, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending
September 30, 2016, and for other purposes.
Mitch McConnell, Susan M. Collins, Jerry Moran, John
Boozman, Steve Daines, John Hoeven, Cory Gardner, Dan
Sullivan, Daniel Coats, Johnny Isakson, Orrin G. Hatch,
Lamar Alexander, Mike Crapo, Richard Burr, Shelley
Moore Capito, Michael B. Enzi, Joni Ernst.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the
mandatory quorum call under rule XXII with respect to the cloture
motions be waived.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I wish to speak about an amendment I
plan on offering tomorrow to the Transportation bill we are working on
right now on the Senate floor. It is a commonsense amendment. It is an
amendment about safety. It is an amendment about protecting our
citizens. It is an amendment about cutting through redtape. It is an
amendment about what the vast majority of Americans want us to do in
the Senate, which is to start to get things done in this body. It is a
simple amendment.
This is what my amendment does. It would allow States and communities
throughout this country of ours the ability to expedite the Federal
permitting process, the regulatory process on the construction and
rebuilding of bridges. It is pretty simple. It doesn't get much more
simple than that.
Everybody needs infrastructure. Every community in America needs
bridges. It would only apply to bridges--critical pieces of
infrastructure--bridges that are built in the same place, the same
size, bridges that in the United States are falling apart.
We have talked about this on the Senate floor for the last several
months. Our Nation's infrastructure is crumbling. The American Society
of Civil Engineers gives America's infrastructure a D-plus. We are
failing. For our infrastructure, in the classroom, we are the D-plus
students.
This is, of course, bad for our Nation's economy. There is nothing
more central to a country that wants to grow its economy, that wants to
compete globally, than sound infrastructure for transportation. In a
country of our size facing economic challenges, America's
infrastructure can either drive growth and opportunity or it can slow
down growth and opportunity and undermine it. Right now, that is what
we are doing. We are slowing it down. We are undermining it. It is
worse than that. It is worse than just undermining our own economic
opportunity. The state of our infrastructure is actually dangerous for
our citizens.
I agree that we must have stable funding for infrastructure. That is
why I have been a strong supporter of the DRIVE Act and this bill, in
terms of a 6-year highway bill, under the DRIVE Act. But we also need
to focus on something else that is driving up the cost of our Nation's
infrastructure: redtape that is stopping critical projects in America
from moving forward. Like so many construction projects in this
country, the environmental review process our bridges face is deathly
slow and cumbersome and enormously expensive. We live in a redtape
nation, particularly when it comes to infrastructure. We can't build
the way we used to in this country.
Consider just a few statistics. The average time for environmental
reviews for a major transportation project in the United States in 2011
was 8 years. That is up from 3\1/2\ years just 10 years earlier. The
average environmental impact statement when NEPA was written was 22
pages. Now the average environmental impact statement is over 1,000
pages.
Let me give one example that came up in the Commerce Committee. We
were talking about airport infrastructure--again, critical to the
country. Seattle had built a new runway. When I asked the witness who
was in charge of that runway how long it took to build, he said 3
years. That is a pretty long time, but it is a big runway, kind of
complicated. Then I asked how long it took to get the Federal permits
and regulatory permission from the Federal Government to build that new
runway. The answer: 15 years. Fifteen years. The entire room gasped.
No American wants this. We need to do a lot more to get back to
commonsense permitting and regulatory reform for America's
infrastructure.
So we are starting on critical pieces of infrastructure that
everybody can agree with. That is what this amendment does. It focuses
solely on bridges. Our bridges are an increasingly important issue. One
in 10 of our Nation's bridges--roughly 607,000 bridges in the United
States--is structurally insufficient. Let me repeat that in a different
way. In the United States, there are more than 600,000 bridges in need
of repair. The average age of our bridges is 42 years old. So we need
to repair them. We need to rebuild them. But what we don't need is the
Federal Government taking 6 to 7 or 8 to 9 years to give us permission
to rebuild bridges. There is not one American who thinks that would be
a good idea. Yet, if we keep the law the same, that is exactly what is
going to happen.
Communities need to rebuild bridges, and it is going to take several
years to get permission from agencies in this town to allow them to do
it. To do what? To build on the same land, to just build a bridge. We
need to change that.
Thousands of communities across the country are simply keeping their
fingers crossed when Americans cross structurally deficient bridges 215
million times a day. Let me repeat that. In this great country,
Americans cross structurally deficient bridges 215 million times a day.
So we need to fix them. They are being crossed by our trucks, carrying
our Nation's commerce, our children in schoolbuses, parents trying to
get home in time for dinner. These are people we should be protecting.
[[Page S8076]]
That is what my amendment does. It says that we are going to work to
fix this infrastructure with the bill that we are working on, that my
colleague from Maine is leading on with the DRIVE Act. But we are also
going to be smart. We are not going to require Americans to take half a
decade to get permission from the Federal Government to rebuild a
bridge.
These bridges sustain our economy, they connect our communities, they
connect us, they keep us safe, and we need to expedite the ability to
fix our infrastructure in this country, starting with our bridges. That
is all this amendment does. It is simple. It is common sense. I hope
that if I can bring this to the floor, we will get a unanimous vote in
favor of this amendment.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, let me commend my colleague from Alaska
for raising this important issue.
First, it is important to understand that his amendment only applies
to structurally deficient bridges. These are bridges that are
deteriorating and that need extensive renovation or replacement. And it
is important that we address the problem of structurally deficient
bridges before they become unsafe to use. That is the risk, and that is
what my colleague from Alaska is attempting to address with his
amendment. He is proposing that if we are replacing a structurally
deficient bridge in exactly the same place, that we do not need to
start all over again with an environmental impact statement that may
delay the replacement of this structurally deficient bridge for
literally years, not to mention the enormous cost that is undertaken
when with an environmental impact statement and all the attendant
studies are done. He is correct that the amount of time to do this kind
of analysis, as well as the length of these studies, has grown
enormously in recent years, and that, too, is a problem when we are
dealing with a structurally deficient bridge.
I believe this is a commonsense amendment. I would not want to waive
environmental impact studies if the bridge were going to be built in a
new location. Then we would need to do that kind of careful
environmental analysis and review to make sure the environmental impact
is well understood. But that is not what Senator Sullivan is proposing.
He is proposing that for this one category of bridges, we would not
have to do the environmental impact statement if it is being rebuilt in
exactly the same place. I think this makes sense. I think this is the
kind of common sense that my colleague from Alaska has brought to
Washington, and I commend him for his amendment.
I do know there are some concerns, I believe, on the other side of
the aisle, and I appreciate the Senator from Alaska working with us.
But I, for one, believe his amendment does make sense. It is narrowly
tailored, and I believe it should be adopted by this body.
Thank you, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I wish to thank my colleague from Maine
for her comments. I very much appreciate her support. We will work with
the others if they have questions.
I have worked on a number of issues now in my first year in the
Senate with my colleague from Rhode Island, and I certainly want to
make sure he is comfortable with this commonsense amendment. But I
guarantee my colleagues, whether it is in Maine or Alaska or Rhode
Island, if our citizens look--it doesn't matter; Democrat or
Republican--at an amendment like this, I think the vast majority of
them would say: Of course. Of course that is what we should be doing--
protecting our citizens, building infrastructure, protecting the
environment, but not making things take forever. That is what we are
trying to do.
So I appreciate the kind words of the Senator from Maine about the
amendment, and I am hoping we can move forward on this tomorrow.
Thank you. I yield the floor.
Ms. COLLINS. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________